1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicular passenger protecting apparatus preferably used in an air bag developed at a side portion in a vehicular compartment of an automobile.
2. Background Art
Conventionally, air bags of a driver seat and a passenger seat next to driver seat have widely been spread as one of safety apparatus of an automobile. Further, in addition to the air bags at front seats, in recent years, an air bag developed in a side direction at inside of a vehicular compartment is also spreading. In the air bag provided in the side direction, other than a so-called side air bag provided at a side of a seat, as shown by FIG. 9, a so-called curtain air bag 1 to be spread from a front pillar 11 over to a rear pillar 13 has been developed and reduced into practice.
According to the curtain air bag 1, an air bag main body 2 is stored in a side roof rail 12 along a vehicle length direction and when strong impact is effected from a side of a vehicle by collision or the like, the air bag main body 2 is spread to totally cover a side face of the inside of the regular compartment to alleviate impact to a passenger (particularly, impact to the head portion).
Meanwhile, there is the curtain air bag 1 in which a front side lower end of the air bag main body 2 and the front pillar 11 are connected by a strap (string) 3. This is because although an upper side of the air bag main body 2 is fixed to the side roof rail 12, a lower end thereof constitutes a free end and therefore, it is necessary to regulate a position of the lower end of the air bag main body 2 in expanding to develop the air bag 1.
Further, by regulating the lower end position of the bag main body 2 by the strap 3, operation of expanding to develop the air bag 1 is made ideal.
Here, FIG. 10 is a schematic perspective view of the vehicle and FIG. 11 is a sectional view taken along a line A—A in FIG. 10. As shown by FIG. 11, the front pillar 11 includes an outer panel 11a, an inner panel 11b formed in a closed section and a reinforcement 11c as a reinforcing member provided at inside of the inner panel 11b. Further, a compartment inner side of the inner panel 11b is covered by a pillar trim 14 and a harness 15 for an electric equipment is arranged between the pillar trim 14 and the inner panel 11b. Further, a front window 20 is fixed at an end portion of the front pillar 11.
Further, a weather strip 16 is fitted to edge portions of the inner panel 11b and the pillar trim 14 and an opening between the inner panel 11b and the pillar trim 14 is closed by the weather strip 16.
Further, the above-described strap 3 is arranged along an interval between the pillar trim 14 and the inner pillar 11b. Further, as explained in reference to FIG. 9, one end of the strap 3 is fixed to the pillar 11 and other end thereof is connected to the front lower end of the air bag main body 2.
Further, in developing the air bag 1, the strap 3 is pulled out from a gap between the pillar trim 14 and the weather strip 16 in accordance with expansion of the air bag main body 2.
However, according to the prior art, a middle portion (other than both end portions) of the strap 3 is not fixed at all at inside of the front pillar 11 and a position of arranging the strap 3 is not determined at inside of the front pillar 11. Therefore, there is a possibility that the strap is caught by an edge portion of the pillar trim 14 to make the pillar trim 14 jump to be detached.
Further, it cannot be predicted how the strap 3 comes out from the pillar 11 in developing the air bag 1 and therefore, depending on cases, there also is a concern that the strap 3 is caught by the edge portion of the pillar trim 14 in developing the air bag 1 and ideal development of the air bag 1 is hampered.
Further, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 16014/2001, in order to resolve a problem similar to the above-described, there is disclosed a constitution of providing a guide member for guiding an ejecting direction of a strap between a pillar trim and the weather strip at inside of a pillar.
However, even in such a technology, a middle portion of the strap is not fixed at all similarly at inside of the pillar and therefore, the strap cannot completely be prevented from being caught by the pillar trim. Further, it is necessary to provide the above-described guide member by an amount of a length of the pillar along the length direction of the pillar and there poses a problem of increasing cost.